Aaaand now we're getting to the antagonists of the evening. I'm curious to see how many saw them coming ; )
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Double Time
Chapter Seven: Threats as They Come
There was a part of Washington that was disappointed when he came through the window at four that morning and, rather than finding Tucker awake waiting for him, was instead met with the awkward silence of his partner soundly sleeping.
Even if it had become more and more often that these were the way things were, and even though Wash easily rationalized it by remembering Tucker worked still, after all, he felt a certain pang about it.
Which was nothing compared to the headache he got when the blinds were pulled open and the bedroom light came on only three hours later.
"Agh!" Wash groaned, covering his face with his hands.
"Sorry to interrupt the catnap," Tucker said sarcastically.
"Most people call it regular sleep but alright," Wash said, rubbing at his face crankily. "Seriously, though, Tucker, what the hell…?"
"We need to talk," Tucker announced, sitting on the edge of the bed. He was fully dressed in his work uniform, arms crossed in the sort of aggravated way that reminded Wash of a school teacher for some reason.
"Right now?" Wash asked critically. "I just went to bed," he double checked the clock to make sure he wasn't pulling the number out of thin air, "three hours ago."
"Uh huh," Tucker replied testily. "I guess that's only a problem when our moments cut into my sleep schedule and not yours, right? I mean, shit, you save the world and help little ol' ladies cross the street. I'm just a fucking fry cook. What's my time worth?"
Finally pushing into a sitting position, Wash took a sharp inhale of air and looked tiredly at Tucker. "That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying that… this seems sudden. And I don't know if talking while angry is a wise choice."
"Good thing we're arguing and not talking then," Tucker snapped.
"We're arguing?"
"Oh my god, you are so fucking obtuse," Tucker actually laughed – but it wasn't the warm cackle that Wash knew and had grown to feel warmth spread through him at. It was sharp and scathing. Like Tucker's current tone. "We've been arguing for weeks."
"Weeks?" Wash questioned. "What? Is this going back to the car thing? Do I need to apologize for not being in on your inside joke with your friends?"
Tucker stared at him like he had just spoken in another language for a few minutes. "Oh my god, so fucking obtuse."
Rubbing at his face, Wash sighed. "Okay, I'll need you to walk me through this–"
"I don't want you in on our inside jokes, idiot, I want you to have inside moments with us! And not bail on us by literally rather throwing yourself out of a moving car than have to spend some of your precious free time in our company," Tucker replied angrily.
Genuinely confused, Wash sat up further. "You're mad because you want me to be friends with your friends? Even if there's nothing that we all have in common?"
"No! Wash, dammit!" Tucker groaned grabbing at his hair. "Don't you get it? I want us to spend time together! Like actually together!"
"We do," Wash said firmly.
"Not enough that you think of me and Junior as being, I don't know…" Tucker shook his head harshly. "You… You don't think of Junior as anything but my kid."
"Of course he's your kid," Wash replied.
"He worships you, dude!" Tucker cried out. "Do you know how much time he spends every night telling me how awesome you are and how excited he is every time there's a new training exercise or compliment thrown his way. And god, you put him on that superhero team. He's on cloud nine!"
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Wash tried very hard to keep up with the source of the complaint. "Wait, what's wrong with all of those things?"
"I'm trying to tell you to think of us as your family, asshole!" Tucker snapped.
"You think I don't?" Wash asked skeptically.
"I don't think outside of superhero business, you've spent much time with us as anything else. And we fucking live with you, dude," Tucker pointed out. "And you know why? It's because you have tried nothing outside of being a superhero. You have, like, no separation between being a superhero and being here with us. Or on the street. Or in the goddamn mayor's office because your superhero name is just your last name for some godforsaken reason."
Frowning a bit, Wash held up a finger. "To be fair, I was assigned that name in Freelancer. I never found out if it was coincidence or a terrible joke."
"This argument's a joke," Tucker said, throwing up his hands.
"You're the one who started it," Wash attempted to argue only to have Tucker waggle a finger at him.
"Don't try to be cute or sarcastic, my point still stands!"
Growing exhausted of the exchange, Wash held up his hands. "What point? What do you want from me, Tucker? I do think of you all as my family. I just. I don't know how to… civilian anymore. It's been a very long time since it was relevant to my interests."
"Is it relevant now?" Tucker asked. "Are we relevant to your interests?"
"Yes," Wash said without hesitation. "But I still don't know what you want from me, Tucker."
"You're asking for me to literally spell this out for you," Tucker remarked dully.
"Yes. Yes, I am," Wash replied more snappishly than he would have liked, but his frustration was only growing.
"I don't know," Tucker said, folding his arms across his chest again.
"Oh, don't make me beg, I'm trying to meet you on your own terms here," Wash half begged."
Tucker looked at him almost apologetically. "No, I mean, I don't actually know."
Washington stared at him for a good long moment before letting his temper actually flare up.
"What do you mean you don't actually know? What does that mean? You're the one who is mad at me! Not the other way around here!"
"I know!" Tucker yelled back.
"Obviously, you don't!" Wash squeaked out before rubbing his face. "Oh my god, we are literally fighting over nothing and I'm tired–"
"It's not all about you! That's what we're fighting about!" Tucker yelled back. "No fight in the history of ever has been about nothing Wash! You wanna know what we're fighting over? It's that you still can't get out of the mentality that it's just you!"
"That's not true," Wash scoffed. "I'm very concerned about you and about Junior – I love spending time with Junior, working with him, drawing with him."
"All of those things you just described doing with my son? They're all superhero related," Tucker replied coarsely. "You connect to us on a purely superheroic level, and I want – I need to know that you're not going to get tired of us if there's no threat of us becoming dudesels in distress anymore. That if you're not being a superhero, you're going to be our Wash. Because if not… That's not a relationship, Wash."
"What're you saying?" Wash asked, voice growing quiet and timid despite himself. "Tucker, what're you saying here?"
"I'm saying you're more than a hero to us, Wash," Tucker replied tiredly. "It'd be nice to know and feel like that wasn't all we were to you."
That was something that Wash could understand.
"What do I need to do to make sure you know that then?" Wash asked. "Because I promise you that you're so much more to me than just that. Absolutely, completely. And I will prove it."
For the first time that day, Tucker cracked a smile. "Oh, yeah? Just like that?"
"Yes, just like that," Wash replied. "What do you need me to do in order to prove just how much I mean it?"
Tucker gave him an appraising look, as if he could somehow inspect Wash's face and assess his truthfulness.
At the moment, Wash wasn't entirely sure he couldn't do just that.
Finally, though, he smirked and pointed at Wash. "You are going to get yourself and Junior over to the diner when I get off shift at three this afternoon and we're going to prove this is a family kinda thing by having linner."
After a moment of passing silence, Wash tilted his head.
"I'm sorry, what?" he asked worriedly. "I… Is that something I should be familiar with?"
Tucker rolled his eyes so far that his head followed them. "Oh, my god, Wash. You've never heard of linner?"
Squinting, Wash worried that he was missing something genuinely important. "No?"
"Linner – it's between lunch and dinner. Obviously. Duh," Tucker replied.
"What? Like brunch?" Wash tried to clarify.
"Yeah, duh. Breakfast-lunch and lunch-dinner, and if you're super dedicated to the three meals per day you've got that dinfast–"
"You are literally making things up right in front of my face right now," Wash surmised. "Linner is not a thing."
"It absolutely is a thing, ask anyone who has worked in dining services! What do you eat after you get off the lunch rush shift? Linner. Duh. Trust me on this, mister-didn't-even-know-you-could-put-hot-sauce-in-eggs."
"Which is still weird," Washington clarified.
"No, it's not, it's delicious," Tucker said, voice eased back into that comfortable banter that had Washington believing that they were perhaps finally over whatever hill they had been on just a few moments earlier. "We'll have linner at the diner and then I'll be happy with the progress."
"Progress being…" Wash pressed.
"You being human as much as you're superhuman, Wash," Tucker pushed. "C'mon. You've gotta know that what we were doing before now… it's been very one-sided."
"You want me to get some kind of job and hide what I'm doing all the time?" Wash tried to catch up. "I already wear sunglasses–"
"I just want you to have a life, Wash, jesus christ, calm down," Tucker said, beginning to edge back into irritability.
"Says the man who's been yelling at me for about two weeks," Wash replied flatly. When Tucker didn't let up, he gave a defeated sigh and leaned back into the pillows behind him. He was way too tired. "Linner will start me on the path toward humanity in your eyes again?"
"Linner will start you on the path to behaving like a proper person in general, yes," Tucker said, sounding pleased. "I'd have offered brunch, but I suspect you're about to sleep in until about one."
"Just one?" Wash mused, eyes already sliding closed.
"Yes, just one, because that's when I told Junior to make sure you started getting ready for linner. So you're not getting out of this any time fast, Wash. You're stuck with your promises while you're with me," Tucker chuckled.
"Mmph," Wash responded, which might have at one point almost formed something similar to a sentence prior to his head hitting the pillows.
Practically drained of any emotional and physical energy, Wash wasn't sure if he would have made it through another argument even Tucker had continued trying. But even in the haze of approaching sleep, he noted the shifting of the mattress as Tucker got up and of the brush of a hand through his hair.
"Alright, you big dummy, sleep or something already. We'll work on your human exercises later," Tucker promised.
Before the bedroom door was bothered, Wash was out again, but a weight he hadn't even realized was there was all but gone. He truly felt as though he could breathe again. And he was more than ready to have a frankly restful sleep.
At least, he was until the door came flying open what felt like only seconds later and slammed against the door.
Alarmed, Wash leaped to his feet on the bed and looked toward the door.
"Wash!" Tucker yelled.
"What!? What!?" Washington demanded, feeling dizzy with confusion – had the conversation just finished? Was he dreaming? What happened? Tucker was wearing the same outfit from before and–
"On the news!" Tucker said, rushing over and grabbing Wash's wrist before yanking him toward the television room. "There's some asshole on the news!"
"What?" Wash asked, dreariness setting in again. "There's always an asshole on the news? What's special–"
Washington came to a stop, sobering up from his sleepiness as soon as his eyes landed on the news report flashing across the screen. It was the court house in the middle of the city, and it was literally burning, a dark figure stand on top of it in black and green.
Alarmed and surprised, Wash leaned toward the screen and read the alerts at the bottom.
Professed Supervillain Calls For Freelancer Superhero Washington
Tucker was past hysteric. "Who the fuck is that?"
"Don't know," Wash said, going for his hidden closet for his fresh suit. "I'm going to find out, though."
"You can't be serious," Tucker blanched. "But–"
"But nothing, this is part of the superhero job," Wash replied, putting on his visor. "I take it almost as seriously as linner." When he looked to Tucker he was disappointed to not find a smirk. "I'll make it to the diner. Promise."
"Yeah, that's what I'm worried about now," Tucker replied sourly. "Aren't you exhausted? You've only slept, like, four hours!"
"Three, but who's counting," Wash said, heading for the downstairs exit where his motorcycle was waiting. "Don't worry, I'll take a cat nap after."
"And then make it to linner," Tucker pressed, less conviction in his voice than before.
"Absolutely," Wash promised before getting on his bike and heading off.